Cotton Blossom, winner of the 2007 Acorn Stakes (gr. I), became the most expensive horse sold so far at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale when she brought $2.3 million during the auction’s second session Nov. 11 in Lexington. The price topped the $2.25-million price brought by 2002 Horse of the Year Azeri (in foal to Distorted Humor ) during the sale’s opening session the previous day.
Florida pinhooker Dean De Renzo, representing Betty Moran’s Pennsylvania-based Brushwood Farm, signed the sale ticket for Cotton Blossom, who is in foal to Street Cry. The immediate underbidder was Greg Goodman of Mt. Brilliant Farm in Kentucky,
“I think Betty is going to be pretty happy with this mare; she’s fantastic,” said De Renzo, who was buying for Brushwood for the first time. “There is everything to like about her; she’s unbelievable. She’s the biggest, most beautiful mare, I think, to go into the ring for this sale. She was a fantastic racehorse, and she’s a fantastic-looking mare, so she should have great babies. That’s what it’s all about. And Mrs. Moran will race those babies.”
Eaton Sales consigned Cotton Blossom, who was among the horses being dispersed by Overbrook Farm, which was founded by the late W.T. Young in Kentucky. Produced from the stakes-winning Dixieland Band mare For Dixie, Cotton Blossom is a half-sister to grade III winner Vicarage (by Vicar).
“She’s a beautiful-looking mare, and I’m happy for Mrs. Moran,” Goodman said. “She was really only the mare we went after; we loved her. She has a great body, and she was a great race mare. It was everything; we really, really liked her. I’m real disappointed because I really thought I had a shot at her. I was just stunned.”
Chris Young, grandson of W.T. Young, believed Cotton Blossom was an obvious choice to be a standout in the dispersal.
“She’s a big, beautiful, grade I-winning filly in foal to Street Cry, so she sold herself,” Chris Young said. “We didn’t have a whole lot to do with that other than getting her well turned out for the sale. It’s so hard to tell when you get into that (seven-figure) price range what they’re exactly going to bring. We knew that she was popular, and we knew she was a nice mare in foal to the right stallion. It always takes two pretty game bidders to drive a price up that high, so, you never know. If she had gotten $1 million or $1.25 million, we would have felt that was a fair price. It was just a matter of two game people who really wanted her.”
